


getting caught in the rain

by darcylindbergh



Series: Husbands under the Hill [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bilbo Gets a Turn at Having Too Many Feelings, Concepts of Home, Declarations of Love Even Though They're Married, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Porn With Slightly More Plot, Shire Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-04 13:13:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17305241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: There are many things to discover under the protection of a weeping willow, and Bilbo explores one of them: the love of Thorin Oakenshield.





	getting caught in the rain


    If you like piña coladas
    and getting caught in the rain—
    
    Rupert Holmes (1979)

*

There is something peculiar that happens when you step out of your door and onto the road.

It’s an invisible sort of something—something that unfurls so slowly and so deeply, something that grows and twines so carefully around the trellis of your ribs you hardly even notice it happening. It’s an unexpected sort of something, but it’s always something that, when you finally discover it within yourself, you wonder at how you could have existed without it.

There’s a piece of yourself that can never be found idling in comfortable armchairs and by warm hearths, passing the hours in the way things have always been and the way things always would be. When you step out into the world, so much more dangerous and _vast_ than it ever could have appeared on any map, only then can you begin to realise that some piece of you is waiting out there, a piece that cannot be thought or dreamed into existence: it can only be _made_.

There are pieces that can only be carved by the winds picking up around your ears, that can only be forged by a bonfire crackling in a makeshift bed, by the sun tracking across the sky and the horizon rising up to meet your feet. They are hard, sharp things to carry inside yourself, these pieces, both weapon and shield, formed in frothing waters and on sun-baked stones, shaped with rope-bound wrists and flashes of steel, hardened by monsters made of tooth and rock—by monsters made of gold.

They are agony. They are desperation. They are fear.

But they are also soft things, quiet things—vulnerable things. They are the pieces that crystallize in the morning sun cresting over the next ridge after the howls of the night, in the bloom of unfamiliar flowers nestled in the roots of trees as you hide from storms and from scouts, in the flash of the firefly and the flutter of butterflies that bring memories and laughter into the air. They are the things that sprout and flourish in the wake of seeing something new—in seeing something never before imagined, never before considered—in seeing something that stops your steps in awe and wonder as you learn something unexpected about the sky, the trees, the earth.

As you find something unexpected in the blue of his eyes.

These pieces are courage. They are perseverance.

They are love.

They are the sort of things that can only be breathed in against another, in foreheads pressed together and hands entangled and blankets shared. They are the sort of things to be gentled out into another’s heart, coaxed into being by the gasp of relief, of _I’m all right, you’re all right,_ enticed by whispers about future days in the dim light of the fire, where shadows obscure the terrifying tentativeness of _if_.

_If we survive._

They are the pieces that leave you lying awake at night even after you’ve returned, counting the stars and wondering what else is out there, what else you might have missed; they are the sort of things that leave a wide, empty space under your breastbone, nestled up next to the cosy place reserved for _home_ —a space you’re leaving open for something yet unknown, something you know is yet out there. Something still waiting for you.

All of which is to say: you can take a Hobbit out of the adventure, but you can’t take the adventure out of a Hobbit.

*

“See anything?” Bilbo calls, watching Thorin climb some rocky outcropping to get a better look at the road ahead of them.

“The weather turns foul,” Thorin calls back. Bilbo snorts—he can see the darkening horizon just as well from the ground, without having to clamber all over some precarious rocks, thank you very much. “We’ll have to look for shelter soon.”

“And do you see any of that up there?”

Thorin doesn’t answer right away. He looks out pensively over the land, his expression nearly unreadable.  His hair is a living thing in the wind, slipping over his shoulders, caught in the breeze. He looks every inch the prince he once was—hardened by fury and shame and need, with his homeland at his back and the burden of his people on his shoulders—but only if one doesn’t quite know how to look closer.

To Bilbo, he looks free.

It’s in the wrinkles at the corners of Thorin’s eyes, made deeper by laughter over the last two years; it’s in the proud set of his shoulders and the ease with which he moves, no longer buckling under the weight of weary troubles and endless duty.  It’s in the dark green wool of his cloak and the wood-carved clasps in his hair and the gently softened line around his middle.

He looks, Bilbo thinks, the way he was meant to have looked all along: strong, and steadfast, and sure of his place in the world.

The thought swells, fierce and affectionate under Bilbo’s breastbone. Thorin’s place in this world, his _chosen_ place, is next to Bilbo.  _Husbands under the Hill_. 

“Nothing obvious,” Thorin calls back finally. He takes a few more moments to look out over their path, the beginning of a smile just barely edging at the corner of his mouth, and then climbs back down, taking his pack out of Bilbo’s hands and giving him a kiss on his temple as a thanks for holding it.

“You old mountain goat,” Bilbo says, playing at the long-suffering spouse even as he returns Thorin’s kiss. “Ask a Dwarf to find shelter in a forest and he’ll tell you there’s none to be had. Ridiculous.”

Thorin’s laughing. “And if we were to ask a Hobbit instead? I suppose he’d know all about it, would he?”

“He would. And none of his shelters would drop out from under him into a filthy goblin tunnel either. I thought you lot were meant to have stone sense or what-have-you.”

“ _Some_ of us are meant to have stone sense, so you can blame Bofur and Bifur for that. My senses were always more suited to a smithy, as well you know.”

“Fat lot of good that did you.”

“Made you that ring, didn’t it?”

Without thinking, Bilbo’s right hand goes to his left, running his fingertips over the warm band of gold around his fourth finger—his wedding band. Thorin wears an identical one on his own left hand, binding them together, marking them as one another’s just as visibly as their hearts are marked. Reassuring them both that whatever the past, the shine of gold holds no fear in the face of such a love as this.

“All right, yes,” Bilbo says, aiming to sound put-upon but losing his way around an unexpected smile and only sounding terribly fond instead. “I _suppose_.”

Thorin only laughs, and presses one more kiss to Bilbo’s cheek before setting back off down the road.

*

It’s an increasingly familiar road, the journey from Hobbiton to Bree. Thorin typically prefers to travel it with ponies, or once or twice a cart, pushing through it as fast as he can, but they’re taking it slowly this time: a proper walking holiday, complete with lazy afternoons when the lure of a shady oak or a copse of beeches is too enticing to pass up, with sunsets blooming like peonies over the horizon as the current of the Brandywine swirls around their ankles, with crisp mornings full of the song and smell of the Old Forest, settling like ancient knowledge into Bilbo’s bones.

When they’d gotten the letter from Erebor inviting them to meet up in Bree, Bilbo had struggled with the daydreams of this little holiday, trying to hide it and feeling guilty for even imagining the possibility. Thorin had been so long without a home, after all, and it had seemed unnecessary and unfair to ask him to leave theirs for so long over nothing but a flight of fancy.

Even so, his gaze had stretched long toward the East, and his heart had ached a little with the curiosity of it: _what else is out there? What else might we see? Who else might we yet become?_

But Thorin had known, in the way Thorin always knows, and he’d gathered Bilbo into his arms one night after they’d drifted down to the hearthrug to watch the fire die. He’d said, entirely gently but without really asking, “You need a little wandering, _ghivashel_. Your feet are restless.”

“I’m fine,” Bilbo had denied, but even just hearing Thorin say it aloud had made it somehow real, and he had tried to cover his tight throat and fluttering hands with a huff of awkward laughter. “I’m not going to ask you to leave your home here and go wandering again with me, just to satisfy some whimsy of mine.”

Thorin had held him even closer, and whispered, “I don’t think anything you need is a whimsy, Bilbo Baggins,” and his eyes had been so serious in the dying light, so sure, and his mouth had been so tender against the line of Bilbo’s cheekbone. “Let me take care of you, Bilbo. Let me take you out into the world. Let me take you on an adventure, and bring you home again. I promise it will still be here when we come back to it.”

“ _You_ are adventure enough for me,” Bilbo had said, but Thorin had kissed him then, instead of answering, and kissed his eyelids where his eyes were threatening to wet, and kissed his forehead where his thoughts were threatening to sour, and they both had known that it would be a longer trip to Bree this time than it had been before.

*

And so they set out, just the two of them, just their packs on their backs and the earth beneath their feet and their hands clasped between them. They moseyed their way through the Shire, and spent several days camped along the Brandywine, stealing kisses among the river roses and the tall reeds before crossing the Bridge about two days ago. It’s been everything Bilbo needed: as comfortable and familiar as the curved walls of their smial, as bright and fresh as the first days back on the road to Erebor again.

And Thorin, oh, Thorin. Bilbo feels like he’s seeing Thorin anew all over again. There are little habits he’d always known but never quite placed into context—the way Thorin wears his belt a little too loose, to compensate for the weight of weapons he doesn’t carry in the Shire; the way he prefers his cloak to situate more over one shoulder than evenly across his back, to compensate for the strap of a pack he doesn’t hold. They are things Bilbo probably knew once, things he’d probably noticed-but-not-really on their first journey, and he feels like he sees Thorin clearer, like he holds Thorin closer and hears his heart beat louder, and it’s exciting, a bit, and with their well-worn domesticity alongside it to add a layer of warmth between them, Bilbo doesn’t know if he’s ever been happier.

Even now, with the rain threatening overhead, Bilbo only thinks he wouldn’t quite mind being caught in a downpour with Thorin, with Thorin’s thick hair wet and tousled and Thorin’s broad hand in his to keep him from falling in the mud, and he has to laugh at himself. _Marriage has made you awfully sentimental,_ he tells himself, and he finds he’s only pleased by it.

They’re barely on the road again an hour before Bilbo catches sight of what he’s been looking for. The dark line of the Old Forest they’ve been following for several days has begun to peter out, and the trees here will be less wild, less dangerous; he only needed to find the right one, and there it is. He grins, bumping his shoulder to Thorin’s. “We’ll have a nice little camp here after all,” he teases, just as the first raindrops begin to fall, landing cold in their hair and on their cheeks. “Do you see it?”

“See what? I see rain, but no more shelter than we’ve had for miles—”

Bilbo laughs, tugging his hood over his head and grabbing Thorin’s hand. “Come on!”

They run together, laughing as Bilbo tries to lead, Thorin’s longer gait struggling to stay in step behind, until finally Thorin realises their destination: there, standing just far enough to feel separated from the Forest proper, nestled down in the dip of some unnamed stream, is a weeping willow.

Its long branches call out to them, swaying gently in the wind; Thorin lets his steps lengthen to beat Bilbo to it, sweeping back its curtain to let Bilbo duck under its protective arms first.

It’s a little darker underneath the hold of the willow, and it smells like early leaves and fresh earth, like the stream swelling along its banks, something lush and venerable that blossoms immediately in Bilbo’s heart. He presses his hands to the old bark of the trunk, looking up to the higher branches with a little awe, and whispers a thanks to the tree for letting them in, for letting them close, for letting them shelter from the storm.

When he turns back, Thorin is watching him carefully. “I’ve heard tell of the trees of the Old Forest,” he says, looking up into the branches as well, and there’s a new tone to his voice—something formal, almost ceremonial, like storytelling around the Party Tree or passing down a tradition of Old, a sliver of the King that’s always going to be a part of Thorin shining through. “Ancient and powerful—dangerous, some might even say. That they speak to one another, something they learned in the dawn of the world, awoken by the songs of _Kaminzabdûna,_ of Yavanna. A wilder tree than one might find in the Shire, perhaps, but perhaps more beautiful for it, too.”

He puts a hand on the trunk as well, just above where Bilbo’s hand still rests, and goes on, speaking now to the tree itself. “Thank you,” he says seriously. “Thank you for this shelter, that my husband and I might rest, safe from the storm. He is loved by many, and by myself more than my own life, and you have provided for him where I could not. You have my gratitude.”

Bilbo blushes all the way up to the tips of his ears. “I think, ah,” he manages, trying to clear his throat, “you know, a general thanks is usually good enough.”

The way Thorin grins and winks back at Bilbo, slipping that cover of kingliness off as easily as a blanket at a summer dawn, says that Thorin is perfectly well aware of what’s usually good enough. “Nothing wrong with a little diplomacy,” he says, “and you look awfully enticing with your hair just barely damp from the rain. Perhaps I only seek to ensure that our warm welcome lasts.”

“Don’t flirt with me while you’re talking to trees, Thorin Oakenshield,” Bilbo says, laughing and dodging a kiss Thorin obviously intends to land on his mouth. “Come on, let’s get settled for the night.”

*

It takes almost no time at all to settle themselves, of course, since there’s no use even speaking of a fire. Thorin sets about re-organising their packs just for something to do, since he doesn’t dare to sharpen their swords while in the shelter of the trees, and Bilbo finds himself drifting a little, leaning back against the trunk of the willow and watching the rain fall.

It’s peaceful here, he thinks, so far away from the hustle and bustle of Bag End, from the endless line of relatives and and teas and birthday parties, from the markets and the tenants and the letters and the baking and the negotiating over this and that. He and Thorin are a little simpler like this too, he thinks, a little more free with one another, as though finding their familiar paces all over again, without all the duties and obligations pressed up between them. They barely need to speak about choosing this direction or that, about when to stop for the night or when to rest a little longer in the mornings; it feels as though they are more naturally together like this, moving however they’d like, wherever they’d like, and finding that they are more in tune with one another than they even thought.

He wonders if they were like this on the quest to Erebor—wordless and yet full of communication, of knocked elbows pointing out soaring hawks or unusual flowers, of hands extended to help one another over a fallen log or through a swampy marsh, of secret smiles and shared blankets and soft kisses that meant more than just _be safe_.

He thinks they probably were, even before the kisses. He thinks, somehow, they always have been: moving one toward the other, one around the other, even before the one had met the other. Together, always—even when they have been apart.

“You’re quiet,” Thorin says, finally abandoning his busy work and leaning next to Bilbo against the tree trunk. The long branches of the willow sway in the breeze; it’s gone cool against Bilbo’s feet. The rain is still light, almost musical, but there is darkness yet visible in the sky. 

“It’s quiet here,” Bilbo returns. “I’m just thinking. Thinking about you.”

“About me?” Thorin asks, gently prodding. He doesn’t crowd Bilbo, never has—he lived on his own long enough to understand the occasional drift inside oneself, and this or that daydream or wondering, even this or that harmless melancholy. They are often silent together, filling the space between them with a calm sort of understanding that doesn’t need words, with a peace and comfort that is felt rather than vocalised, but Thorin knows when the silences have gone on too long, and he’s always there to bring Bilbo back. And Bilbo did, after all, promise to let Thorin take care of him.

Even though he can still take care of himself.

“About you _and_ me,” Bilbo says, giving him a reassuring smile. “About the two of us. Romantic drivel, the usual.”

“Is there room in that romantic drivel for a kiss?”

“You know very well that there is,” Bilbo grins, and Thorin leans down to give him one, a soft and gentle thing. Just a brush of thing; just a sigh of a thing, and it ends when the corner of Thorin’s mouth tugs into a smile. “Mm. We must be insufferable to other people, you know.”

“You know very well that we are,” Thorin says, with something that could have been exasperated resignation if not for the rumbling laugh in his chest. The sound of it eases them both, and when Thorin finally withdraws a little, Bilbo notices he’s holding something behind his back.

“What’s this?” he asks, reaching for it, but Thorin takes a step back, grinning.

“Close your eyes again,” he directs. “I’ve a gift for you.”

Bilbo huffs. “Is it going to be your—”

“ _No_ ,” Thorin cuts off, laughing. “No, not that. Close your eyes. I’ve been saving this for you. For something special.”

“And this is special?” Bilbo asks, but he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the willow nonetheless. “Hiding from the rain?”

“Special enough,” Thorin says. “Now, eyes closed. I got this off a trader from Ered Luin the last time we were to market in Michel Delving. He’d got it from a merchant caravan up from Near Harad, who’d brought it from Far Harad to see if it would sell in the north. Open your mouth and take it, then: it’s a sweet.”

Bilbo complies, though a little sceptically; he’d heard that Far Haradians preferred their foods spicy and savoury, sweetened only with honey where it was sweetened at all. But he trusts Thorin, and _oh_.

Thorin carefully slips something past his lips, his thumb brushing at the corner of Bilbo’s mouth as he does, and _oh_ , isn’t that something? Sweet, yes, from the sugar, perhaps a bit of honey too after all, yes, but something sour underneath it as well, not as biting as a lemon but different, mellower—there’s a complexity to it, a sort of _roundness_ , for lack of a better word, citrusy but nothing like an orange exactly, but neither is it anything like an apple or a pear. It reminds Bilbo of hot sunshine and cool waters and salty breezes, of a brightness in the world that Bilbo doesn’t recognise, of a place in the world Bilbo’s never seen.

“What is it?” Bilbo asks, swiping his tongue over his teeth.

“ _Tablim'mahakrush_ ,” Thorin tells him, and he must be standing closer now, closer than he was when Bilbo closed his eyes. He tips his head toward where he thinks Thorin’s face might be, but he doesn’t look—he’s enjoying the intimacy of unseeing conversation, the sound of the rain, the rustle of the willow branches closing them in. “I don’t know if there’s a word for it in Common.”

“ _Tabl_ , isn’t that the word for apple? It didn’t taste anything like an apple, I don’t think. Did you try it?”

He hears rather than sees Thorin shaking his head. “I was saving it for you to discover on your own.”

“It’s lovely,” he says, finally opening his eyes and looking up at Thorin. He _is_ close, closer even than Bilbo expected. “It’s just lovely, _you’re_ lovely—here, let me see.”

Thorin does, raising his palm for Bilbo to inspect the treats. They’re thick, yellowish rings, nearly bigger than Thorin’s palm, with narrow holes in the centre and a frilly, almost flaky looking edge. The crystallisation over the flesh has turned a golden hue rather than the paler look Bilbo’s used to in candied treats at home—that’ll be the honey, then. The ring on top has been broken into smaller pieces—that’ll be the one Bilbo tasted.

He reaches over and steals a piece. “Now it’s your turn,” Bilbo says, raising the treat to Thorin’s mouth. “Taste.”

Thorin looks at it and says, “All right,” but instead of taking it from Bilbo’s fingers, Thorin dodges them and kisses Bilbo instead, opening his mouth against Bilbo’s and tasting him, slowly but thoroughly, pressing him back against the trunk of the willow and sneaking one hand around his hips to hold him there. His hair is still a little damp from the rain, brushing against Bilbo’s face, and he smells like rain and wind but his mouth is warm and his hold is gentle and Bilbo sinks into it, nearly forgetting the _t_ _ablim'mahakrush_  in his hand until Thorin finally draws away.

“Well?” Bilbo asks, crooking a smile as he caught his breath back. “What did you think?”

“I think,” Thorin says, finally leaning in to lip the little piece away from Bilbo’s fingertips and into his mouth, “I think I’d better put these away.”

*

There had been, once, another golden ring.

It was just a little thing, Bilbo had told himself, and he’d kept it tucked away in his pocket just in case, because it was a handy little thing besides: there were, naturally, certain advantages to being able to slip it on and disappear.

He’d used it in Mirkwood, and it had clearly saved his life and the lives of the entire Company more than once; he had used it in Erebor to sneak about Smaug’s great treasure hoard, and to escape Thorin’s growing wrath when the gold sickness had taken root in him; he had used it in the battle, desperate to reach his friends, to warn them of the trap they were about to walk into; he’d even used it in Bag End a time or two, to hide from the Sackville-Bagginses.

He was not about to apologise for any of that.

But then he’d used it once after Thorin had come to the Shire, when Thorin-in-the-Shire was no more than a passing thing, a visitor come and readying to leave again, sneaking through his own smial for a late-night snack. Thorin had a habit of staying up later than Bilbo, and so Bilbo didn’t think anything of the firelight still spilling out of the parlor. When he went to sneak past, though, he had glanced in, expecting some unbearably endearing sight like Thorin asleep with a book in lap. Instead he’d been surprised to find Thorin awake, hunched over in his seat, his head in his hands as if to carry the weight of some terrible burden. Bilbo had been stricken—Thorin had seemed fine, these past weeks; what trouble had he been hiding?—and had slipped off the ring right then to reach for him.

Thorin, of course, had startled, jumping from his seat and backing away. “What is this?” he’d asked, his cheeks turning red above his beard, lashing out for the embarrassment of having been caught in some private moment. “Some trick of Hobbits, used to spy on their guests?”

“Not at all,” Bilbo had placated, and he’d held up the ring to prove himself. “Just a magic trinket. Thorin, whatever—”

“A magic _ring_ ,” Thorin had sighed. “Have you a suitor then? Here in the Shire?”

Bilbo had tried not to laugh, since Thorin’s expression was so dire, but he had been a little tempted. “You’ve been here for weeks,” he had reminded Thorin. “Don’t you think you’d have noticed if I had a suitor hiding in my eaves? The ring isn’t important, Thorin, but whatever’s troubling you—I will do whatever I can to fix it, you know. There is nothing in you I don’t already know, and certainly nothing I fear.”

Thorin had rubbed a hand over his face, wrinkling his nose in apparent annoyance. “ _You_ may have no fear, Master Baggins,” he said curtly, “but _I_ do, and I’m well aware of the cowardice. I have been trying to put it off, hoping that it would fade and there would be no risk to our friendship, but my heart—” he had put a hand over his chest— “It aches with every denial I make of it.”

“It’s Bilbo,” Bilbo had said, because he couldn’t make sense of any of the rest of what Thorin was talking about. “You’ve not called me Master Baggins in years.”

“Perhaps I should have,” Thorin had snorted. “It would have reminded me of my place.”

“Your place,” Bilbo had shot back, “is _with me._ So call me by my name, will you, and tell me what the problem is.”

“The problem, _Bilbo Baggins_ ,” Thorin had said loudly, “is that I _love_ you, and you are not making it any easier by saying things like that, _my place is with you_ , whatever that means, and I hardly know what to do with myself, or with you, and—”

“What to do with _me!”_ Bilbo had exclaimed, shocked. “As if _I_ am not in love with _you_ , and haven’t been for years, since—oh, I don’t know, since Laketown? Since Beorn’s? Since the night you first turned up on my bloody doorstep? What to do with _me_ , as if _I’m_ the problem here, as if—”

Thorin never got to find out what else it was _as if_ , because Bilbo had, by then, stepped well into Thorin’s space in order to berate him, and, upon finding himself there, thought to himself, _good grief, are we really having an argument about how we love each other_ , and had kissed Thorin instead.

And the ring—the ring in Bilbo’s pocket, the golden ring that sometimes seemed to whisper to Bilbo in the dark—was forgotten for the moment, and the next time Bilbo looked at it, he only remembered saying that it wasn’t important right before he had finally kissed Thorin Oakenshield.

He’d _kissed Thorin Oakenshield_ , Bilbo had thought, a bit giddily, and Thorin had kissed him back, and then—

And Bilbo had put the ring into a drawer in his wardrobe instead of back into his pocket, and, feeling a little worked up and a little overeager, had gone to find Thorin to see if such a kiss might, perhaps, be repeated.

He didn’t need the ring then, not with Thorin there. _Just in case_ , he’d told himself so many times before. Now, with Thorin-in-the-Shire becoming a permanent fixture rather than a passing figure, he thought, _just in case of what?_

Thorin was there, and Thorin was safe, and Thorin would protect him if he needed protecting and Thorin would fight for him if he needed fought for and Thorin would guide Bilbo through if he needed guidance, and he would stand behind Bilbo’s shield and and rally behind Bilbo’s sword and follow Bilbo’s steps in turn. Thorin would hold him close with a shared pipe and a laugh rumbling in both their chests, and hold him closer when the shadows moved in the night and the nightmares took both their voices; he would take each vulnerability offered two him with his hands cupped underneath, huge and strong and steady, and he would give those vulnerabilities back with every breath in his lungs and every glance of his eyes and every smile shared across the pillowcases, and Thorin would love him.

Thorin would _love_ him, and Bilbo didn’t _want_ to disappear from him. He wanted Thorin to _see_ him, to know him, to understand him.

He wanted Thorin to see how Bilbo loved him back.

So by the time Thorin had sat with Bilbo on their garden bench, watching the stars needle their way into the evening sky and sharing a pipe of Old Toby, the work of the day settled comfortably into their bones and into their bellies, shyly offering up identical gold bands to Bilbo, one bigger, one smaller, both made with Thorin’s own two hands to bind together their future, Bilbo hadn’t thought of the ring in the wardrobe in months.

Compared to Thorin, it simply didn’t matter.

*

It never ceases to amaze Bilbo that Thorin can be so _warm._

The rain beyond the embrace of their willow is falling a little heavier now, the sky growing a little darker. The long branches seem to gather closer around them, protecting them, but a few drops make it through here and there. Thorin holds Bilbo close to him, back to chest, arranging his cloak to fall over both their shoulders, but his grip is loose and Bilbo makes himself comfortable against his broad expanse.

“My mother used to tell stories about willows,” he says quietly, barely audible over the rush of the wind. “Stories about sinister trees that could walk, that would follow and ensnare you, should you find yourself on the road too late at night. Horrific warnings about trees that could take hold of you and swallow you up into their roots if you dared to let your guard down.”

“You did not believe these tales?” Thorin murmurs into Bilbo’s ear.

“No, I did,” Bilbo says, laughing softly. “Still do, a bit. You were right, what you said before—the magic of the Old Forest is as old as Yavanna herself, and it sings with her voice, with her protection. Fire and weapons, both of which are brought by intruders—the Forest will protect itself from them.”

“And yet you trusted this tree.”

“Can’t you feel it?” Bilbo asks, looking back over his shoulder at Thorin, but Thorin shakes his head. _Dwarrow_ , Bilbo thinks, _I always forget._ “She has hope, this tree. She’s sheltered travelers before. What do you think of, when you travel? What have you been thinking of, under her branches?”

 _“_ Home,” Thorin says immediately. “I’ve been thinking about home.”

Bilbo nods, settling back against his chest once more. “Home. And probably not just Bag End, I bet.” There’s a pause, then Bilbo feels more than hears Thorin shaking his head. “Tell me.”

Outside the protection of their willow, there’s a roll of thunder in the distance; the rain sheets down, heavier and more insistent. Thorin squeezes once around Bilbo’s middle, pulling him closer, though Bilbo’s not sure which of them he means to protect. His hands find Thorin’s around his waist and intertwine with them, cool and reassuring against Thorin’s heat.

“I was scarcely more than a child when Erebor fell,” he finally began, “and not much more than that at Azanulbizar. By the time our people took up in the Blue Mountains, Erebor was more a myth than a memory, but it was _our_ myth, our storied home, and that word meant more to me than all the years I had spent delving into Ered Luin. Yet once I stood again in Erebor, there was no warmth in it, no comfort. It was empty.”

Bilbo’s hands tighten around Thorin’s as he falls silent once again, letting the sound of the rain in the leaves fill the air. Thorin’s quiet for a long time, with Bilbo’s hands in his, Bilbo’s thumb stroking over his, but Bilbo has learned to be patient. He waits.

Finally, Thorin’s nose nudges along the outer edge of Bilbo’s ear, breathing warm over the skin of his neck as he turns his attention outward again. “I’ve been thinking about Bag End,” he goes on, barely whispering. “And about how you did not want to leave it for my sake, even though we were coming to Bree anyway. I’ve been thinking about how it was not difficult to pack our bags, to follow you out onto the road and leave our green door behind. I’ve been thinking that, for the first time in my life, I’ve found a real home, a true home, and it’s wherever I am with you.”

“You’ve been thinking about love,” Bilbo breathes.

“Aye, I’ve been thinking about love.”

Bilbo turns in Thorin’s hold, looking up at him, wrapping his arms around Thorin’s neck to pull him close, forehead to forehead. The thunder rolls again, closer this time; the branches of the willow seem to gather closer as well. “When I was young,” Bilbo says, “I thought the weight of my home would suffocate me. There were stories, sure, and a little trouble-making too, but there was also expectation. Propriety. I’d grow out of it someday. So I dreamed of an adventure, and had none, and my heart withered with disuse. It wasn’t until you took me out of my home and into the wilds that I really understood what a home should be. Not a place—never just a place—but a feeling.”

Thorin’s nose nudges alongside Bilbo’s; his breath is warm on Bilbo’s cheek. “And what does it feel like?”

Like exotic candied fruit tucked away for a rainy day, Bilbo thinks. Like two identical golden rings, worn in declaration and in promise, in binding and in determination. It feels like waking up on sunny afternoons in Bag End, tucked into the curve of Thorin’s body; it feels like a cup of tea offered silently on cold mornings, when the melancholy lasts too long. It feels like the rush of the wind in his hair and the heat of the earth beneath his feet and the sound of the lock in his door as it clicks closed and the weight of a pack on his back. It feels like the sun on his face. It feels like a touch in the dark.

It feel like fighting, sometimes—like charging through flame with a fear that only drives him forward, instead of holding him back—and sometimes like reassurance—like watching a wound knit itself back together in the aftermath, slow but sure, painful but healing. It feels like inevitability, like the wheel of the stars and the turn of the seasons, but somehow also like a miracle, like the buds of new leaves and the beat of a heart.

“I’ve been thinking about love too,” Bilbo says, instead of all that, and he kisses Thorin.

Thorin, as he’s always done, kisses him back, and it never ceases to amaze Bilbo how Thorin can be so _soft_ , that Thorin can be so _tender_. His Dwarf is, at the centre of him, still a warrior king, born into his armour and his crown, inheriting naught but hunger and hardship, haunted by fire and by madness, and yet Thorin was not made hard under the pressure. His hands, huge and hot, are gentle; his heart, true and bright, is too.

Bilbo loves him, and he presses Thorin back against the trunk of their tree and kisses him a little bit harder, as if to say, _don’t you know how it feels? don’t you know how much and how hard and how deep it feels, all the time?_ And Thorin’s hands on the small of his back and the nape of his neck pull him closer, as if to say, _yes._

 _Yes_ , Thorin says, with the sweep of his tongue and the shift of his jaw, pouring out, gathering in. _Yes_ , he says, with the clutch of his fingers and the bend of his knee, angling forward, pulling toward. _Yes_ , says the catch of his breath. _Yes_ , says the dark of his eyes. _Yes,_ Thorin says, and Bilbo hears him.

“Yes,” Bilbo returns, out loud, and Thorin groans and the thunder cracks overhead, and the next kiss is a little less gentle, edged with a plea. Bilbo’s shirt comes untucked from his trousers as calloused thumbs find his skin and the willow creaks in the wind, and he says it again, without really meaning to, “Yes.” The metal plating of Thorin’s brigandine—unfamiliar now, with so little need for it in the Shire—digs into Bilbo’s palms as he tries to get closer, and closer, and the rain goes on and on, and Thorin kisses him a little more roughly and a little more desperately and yet somehow still full of that same aching, endless tenderness, and Bilbo says, “ _Yes_.”

It’s quick, now, and sure and needy, and yes, Bilbo needs. He feels it in his chest, in his stomach, in his thighs. Thorin’s close and not close enough; his hands are hot and steady but not in the places Bilbo wants them. He wants to feel Thorin against him, that warmth against his skin, that softness against his body. He wants to feel Thorin move, to feel Thorin breathe; he wants to feel Thorin wanting him.

Ties loosen; buttons slip. It’s been ages, Bilbo thinks, since they’ve fumbled against one another like this, hands searching along skin that can’t be seen, too warm in all their clothes. Thorin’s kiss is relentless, his fingers _everywhere_ , and Bilbo can’t get past the buckle of his belt or the ties of his tunic and he nearly bares his teeth with the need rising in him.

In the next moment, Thorin’s hips roll against Bilbo’s, and yes, _that’s it,_ Bilbo can _feel it_ , and he’s wanted and he’s needed and no one has ever, not the way Thorin does, not the way Thorin will, and—

“ _Oh_ ,” Bilbo says, as Thorin finds his way past the ties of Bilbo’s trousers, finally delving a hand inside to find Bilbo’s cock. His stroke is quick and short, and Bilbo’s hips wrestle against him of their own accord, Thorin’s tongue on his neck driving him toward some imminent precipice. Bilbo’s hands clench around themselves as he tries to catch his breath, and barely he manages—“ _Thorin—”_

Thorin’s rhythm slows immediately, turning long and steady, _focused_ , even, as if he’s contemplating every shiver of Bilbo’s reaction. Bilbo’s hands finally find Thorin’s hair, guiding him back up for a kiss, and the stroke slows, slows, slows, as Thorin grins against Bilbo’s mouth. “Yes?” he asks, a little tease to his voice. His hand slips around the head of Bilbo’s cock, making him shudder.

“Not— _oh,”_ Bilbo tries. His breath comes in shorter now, nearly panting, and Thorin’s grin has turned positively wolfish as his stroke slows even more.

“No, then?” he asks, and his hand _stops,_ simply holding Bilbo’s cock with a little caress of his thumb on some sensitive spot along the shaft. Bilbo’s hips jerk, but Thorin’s grip on his waist is stronger.

Bilbo tries to glare up at him, but if Thorin’s look is anything to go by, it’s a fantastic failure. His head does clear though, and he finally manages to say, “Not without you.”

Thorin’s grin softens, and the next kiss is as soft as the first had been. “Yes, all right,” he answers, and he spends the next minute or so helping Bilbo with the complicated ties and layers of his traveling armour, helping Bilbo find the path up and under and down and between. He inhales hard at the touch of Bilbo’s cold fingers against his belly, but Bilbo pets at him a little, settling him, relishing the feel of that stomach relaxing under him before delving a little deeper.

Thorin’s cock strains into Bilbo’s touch, and his eyes slide closed as Bilbo touches him, just brushing lightly along his length at first. Bilbo can’t get enough of the sight of him, his head tipped back against the trunk of a wild willow, his hair damp with rain falling around his shoulders, his chest heaving under dwarven armour and a green traveling cloak.

 _Home_ , Bilbo thinks, _he looks like home_ , and he finally takes Thorin fully in his hand, swipes his thumb over the head of Thorin’s cock, and gives him the first real stroke.

The breath leaves Thorin all at once, and then he’s clutching back at Bilbo, fingers diving underneath once more, taking hold of Bilbo once again, and there are too many wrists and the strokes don’t quite match and the rain is starting to find its paths through the branches of the trees and it’s perfect, Bilbo thinks, it’s wonderful, and Thorin looks like home—like the soft light of dawn coming in through the windows, like the long stalks of fresh hyacinth on their tables—and he sounds like home—like waking up to soft snores and knowing he’s not alone, like lifting his head from a book at the sound of laughter coming up the lane—and he _feels_ like home—like play-wrestling on the grass outside, letting himself be pinned down in order to get a kiss, like coming into Bag End late at night and finding all the fires light and a meat pie put on to warm, waiting for him—and Bilbo doesn’t _need_ Bag End the way he needs Thorin, safe and warm and _alive_ in his arms.

“I love you,” Bilbo says suddenly, because he didn’t say it before, not outright, and even though he says it everyday Thorin needs to hear, needs to understand, needs to know what he means, needs to _realise_ that Bilbo doesn’t itch for adventure these days because he lacks it at home, no, Bilbo itches for adventure because he _can_ , because everything that is good and important and beautiful and vital and _loved_ in this world comes with him, because Bilbo doesn’t leave his home behind him anymore, the way he would have had to do before, because whatever else happens and wherever he may wander and however long he’s gone, he’s certain and he’s sure and he’s never doubted it, not even for a minute, not even before the only important ring he’s ever worn had settled onto his finger to promise it, to bind it into truth: Thorin would be there with him, Thorin would always be there, the way Thorin is now. “Thorin, I love you, I _love_ you, I—”

“Bilbo,” Thorin groans, kissing the rest of Bilbo’s words out of his mouth, and then there’s slick hands and clumsy teeth, bruising fingers around Bilbo’s hips and Thorin’s hair in his face and the steady, steady, steady stroke of Bilbo’s hands and Thorin’s hands, quicker now, shorter now, a little bit harder a little bit faster _right there_ , _oh, right—_ Thorin’s hips, Thorin’s pulse under Bilbo’s palm, stuttering, the flow, failing, the peak, looming, and Bilbo’s head falls back as he loses the rhythm and he can’t breathe and he can’t move and he feels it all the way down his thighs, all the way up his spine, tension curling and breaking and _snapping_ and he thinks _this, this is why they call it a crisis_ , and he comes, wet and warm, Thorin shaking against him as he follows after, hot and hard with a great, wrenching gasp, trying to say Bilbo’s name.

They hold each other up in the aftermath, tremors shuddering through them, one into the other. Thorin laughs, a little, that pleased, satisfied laugh he sometimes has after a particularly good bout, and Bilbo kisses his cheek and his nose and his mouth, laughing back.

“I love you,” Thorin returns, using his clean hand to brush Bilbo’s hair away from his eyes. “ _Amrâlimê_. _Yasthânimê_. _”_

Bilbo turns his face to Thorin’s hand, kissing his palm. “Before you,” he says, trying to organise his thoughts before they drifted away in post-orgasmic lassitude, “before you, I never left home, because I was too afraid I would lose it if I did. And instead I found it. Do you know? I found it.”

“I know,” Thorin answers softly, kissing Bilbo’s temple, his cheek, his mouth. “I know.”

 _Let me take you on an adventure_ , Thorin had asked, weeks ago, _and bring you home again._

Adventures, Bilbo understands, are important, because there are pieces of himself he can only find _out there_ , pieces of himself he can only understand when he steps far enough away to see the whole. There are moments he can only have if he lets himself go far enough to have them, moments that bind together all the pieces of himself into something bigger, into something greater, into something he never thought he could be. Moments of daring and laughter, moments of vulnerability and hope. Moments of love.

You can come back from any adventure, Bilbo thinks, but you never come back the same.

You can come back, but that doesn’t always mean you’re coming _home_.

“I know,” Thorin whispers again, quiet against the sound of the rain. Bilbo closes his eyes, settling himself into Thorin’s arms, resting his cheek against Thorin’s chest and listening to the beat of that fiercely soft heart.

He’s home already.

**Author's Note:**

> Old Man Willow's got nothing on this tree. 
> 
> Thanks again to Leslie @hudders-and-hiddles for being the beta that reads everything, and thanks to the Dwarrow Scholar for my fudgey translations of _tablim'mahakrush_ , or pineapple (literally, apple of pins), and _yasthânimê_ , or my husband (literally, partner of me). 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr, [@forhobbitreasons](http://www.forhobbitreasons.tumblr.com), or on my main [@watsonshoneybee](http://www.watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com)!


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